Smozzy Android app allows mobile web access without a data plan

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One of the major reasons people buy a smartphone is the ability to access the web and all the services that come along with it. The one downside to that is the mobile networks see it as an opportunity to charge you extra each month for a data plan.

This obviously annoys those who believe you should just pay a single fee for use of a phone, rather than different fees for voice, messaging, and data. Well, one developer seems to have got around the issue completely, by creating an app that lets you surf the web on a smartphone without need of a data plan.

The app is called Smozzy and it works on Android phones. For the moment it only works with T-Mobile in the U.S., but that could change in the future.

Smozzy works by taking advantage of an unlimited messaging plan. To access the web you send a request for the webpage you want to visit via SMS to Smozzy. In return the Smozzy servers grab the webpage you have requested along with all the required assets. They are then placed in a ZIP file, encoded as a PNG, and delivered to your phone as an MMS. Each page can be up to 5 MMS messages long and gets presented in your Android web browser.

It’s a clever hack, but one that is probably going to get shutdown sooner rather than later if it becomes very popular. There’s also an issue with HTTPS access due to the fact there is no encryption support, so you access such pages at your own risk.

As for performance, initial testing rendered a page in 15 seconds, but that’s before the Smozzy servers were put under serious load. We expect that to increase as word of the services gets around. We’d also like to see the confused faces at T-Mobile when they suddenly get an influx of MMS traffic over the coming days and weeks.

Smozzy will work without an unlimited messaging plan, but it’s not recommended as the cost would soon escalate depending on the sites you visit. If you do have an unlimited plan, and no data plan, then this could be your solution for occasional mobile web access.